Nikola Badger electric pickup makes a comeback in the most hilarious way
The Nikola Badger electric pickup, one of the biggest blunders in the history of the EV space, is making a comeback in the most hilarious way: through a Youtuber friend of convicted felon Trevor Milton.
There have been blunders in the EV spaces over the years, and GM has been involved with a few of them.
Arguably, the Nikola Badger is one of the biggest ones because it helped push Nikola Motors’ market cap to a ridiculous $20 billion before getting completely wiped out.
Shortly after Tesla unveiled the Cybertruck, Nikola announced its plans for the Badger with a battery/fuel-cell hybrid powertrain enabling 600 miles of range, 0-60 mph acceleration in 2.9 seconds, and released a few renders.
Like most things Nikola, we didn’t take the project too seriously, but a few months later, GM was announced as a partner in the Badger program.
However, the partnership didn’t last long as Nikola and its CEO at the time, Trevor Milton, were exposed for misleading investors about many aspects of their business, especially the technology in its battery and hydrogen semi trucks.
Milton left the company and was later convicted for fraud. Nikola settled for $125 million with the SEC for the allegations of misleading investors.
GM finally realized who they were in business with and terminated their partnership for the Badger program, which Nikola ended killing to focus on its semi trucks amid all the controversy and its stock crashing from a $20 billion valuation to a less than $1 billion valuation.
The Nikola Badger is back
Now, David Sparks, better known as Heavy D Sparks on Youtube and on his Discovery show Diesel Brothers, is bringing the Badger back.
In a new video, Sparks announced that he bought the vehicle program and intellectual property for the Nikola Badger, NZT (electric UTV), and Waverunner (electric watercraft) with plans to bring the vehicles to the market:
When he was still in charge of Nikola, Milton hired the Diesel Brothers to promote the Badger. They were giving what could have been an extremely lucrative deal if the vehicle had become a reality.
They stand to get 2 million shares for promoting the truck, which was worth as much as $140 million at the peak valuation of the company.
At the time, it was not only a potentially lucrative deal for the Diesel Brothers, but it was also good for them to be associated with a zero-emission vehicle as they had recently been fined $850,000 by a Federal Judge who determined they had violated the Clean Air Act on hundreds of occasions.
In the video announcing that the “Badger is real”, Sparks describes Milton as a “longtime friend” and starts out by defending him and questioning the prosecution in his fraud case despite the mountain of evidence that he misled shareholders.
He then claims that over the last 3 years, he and his partner Cole Cannon have been working with Nikola to acquire the Badger program, and they finally were able to close the deal worth “tens of millions”. According to Sparks, Nikola is a “minority partner” in the new company they are creating to continue the Badger program.
The deal came with the only two prototypes that were produced. Sparks claimed that the trucks are mostly custom-made by Nikola, though it is still only a battery-electric vehicle and not a full fuel cell-battery hybrid powertrain.
He didn’t go into detail about his plan to bring the vehicle to market, but he said that everything is going to be documented on his YouTube channel.
Electrek’s Take
This gave me a good laugh today. Who is going to trust this guy to bring the Badger to market after he claims that Milton did nothing wrong? It’s quite funny.
Also, one thing that isn’t clear in this whole thing is Milton’s involvement. I wouldn’t be surprised if we find that he is involved. After all, Milton is still trying to gain control over Nikola and tried to get 5 people elected to Nikola’s board, including Sparks himself, who said that he wanted to bring back the entrepreneurial spirit (aka lying) of the Milton era to Nikola if he was elected.
To be honest, I was more excited about the fact that he also acquired the electric UTV property, which I always thought was Nikola’s best product even though it was built mainly by Bosch, but he said that he won’t touch the UTV for now because he has a deal with Polaris.
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Environment
Communication is now even more important to getting renewable projects off the ground, experts say
(From left) CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick moderates an IoT panel with Cenk Alper, CEO of Sabanci Holding, Christina Shim, chief sustainability officer of IBM, and Mitesh Patel, interim CEO and COO of SunCable International, at CONVERGE LIVE on March 13, 2025.
Renewable energy companies can shorten the long approval process needed for their projects by communicating better with stakeholders, according to experts.
Christina Shim, IBM’s chief sustainability officer, said sponsors need to focus on the business value — in addition to the environmental benefits — when discussing their projects.
“That being said … there are some triggering words now, depending on where you sit around the world, and I think the more that you can quantify business value for what you’re doing and tie it to, again, the business operations and business decision making, it’s only going to be more and more important,” Shim said Thursday.
“As long as the outcomes are the same, you just need to make sure that you’re communicating in an appropriate way with the right stakeholders.”
She compared it to how one might talk to a CFO, versus an investor, versus someone in procurement. “You kind of have to talk about things a little bit differently.”
Mitesh Patel, interim CEO and COO at SunCable International, agrees that adjusting communication for the right audience is crucial.
“For politicians, the voters are their constituency, not your project or not your company. You have to help them translate what benefits your project will bring to the constituents,” said Patel, whose company is developing a project to deliver solar energy from Australia to Singapore via undersea cables.
The project, called Australia-Asia PowerLink, is valued around $24 billion and expected to supply Singapore with 1.75 gigawatts of electricity — or around 15% of its electricity needs, according to the company.
The comments by Shim and Patel, who were speaking to CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick on a panel in Singapore, come as renewable energy projects often take many years to get off the ground.
A report from the Global Infrastructure hub, which is part of the World Bank’s Public-Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility, noted the complex nature of preparation needed before an infrastructure project gets underway. It put the average project preparation time at 6 years but said it can take up to 14 years if the project is not planned properly.
Cenk Alper, CEO of Sabanci Holding, a Turkish conglomerate, said the biggest obstacle to getting renewable energy projects off the ground is often regulatory.
“The biggest problem is still government — the permits. Because from licensing to making a project ready, the total time is longer than the construction time,” he said.
The situation in Europe is worse, he added, citing a project where connecting to the grid took two years.
Alper said Western countries need to streamline the approval process for renewable energy projects, noting China has embarked on more projects in the last five years than the rest of the world combined.
A new study from the REPEAT Project led by Princeton University’s ZERO Lab warns that the repeal of Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) tax credits could decimate the growing EV manufacturing sector.
The report “Potential Impacts of Electric Vehicle Tax Credit Repeal on US Vehicle Market and Manufacturing” clearly outlines the risks. The Princeton study states that repealing the IRA federal tax credits and the EPA’s clean vehicle regulations would sharply reduce EV demand.
Specifically, EV sales could drop around 30% by 2027 and nearly 40% by 2030 compared to sticking with the policies implemented by the Biden administration. That means the share of EVs among new cars sold would shrink dramatically – from about 18% to 13% by 2026 and from 40% to just 24% by 2030.
“While no one has a perfect crystal ball, this is our best attempt to survey available quantitative forecasts and develop an outlook on US EV sales,” explained the study’s project leader, Jesse D. Jenkins, assistant professor at Princeton’s Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering and Andlinger Center for Energy & Environment in an email. “The report is also the only analysis I’m aware of to date that draws the connection to US manufacturing as well.”
Here’s why this matters: The report points out that repealing these policies wouldn’t just slow down EV adoption – it could seriously derail the US manufacturing renaissance now underway. Up to 100% of planned expansions for EV assembly plants could be canceled or shuttered. Battery manufacturing would also take a huge hit, with between 29% and 72% of battery cell production capacity becoming redundant by 2025. That means factories under construction or those just coming online would be at risk.
To put that into perspective, an Environmental Defense Fund report released in January found that $197.6 billion worth of investments in EV and battery manufacturing have been announced at 208 facilities around the US, with two-thirds announced since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in August 2022.
It’s probably a good time to point out that, in order to qualify for IRA federal tax credits, EVs must be domestically assembled, use battery components that have been substantially domestically produced, and use critical minerals produced, processed, or recycled in North America or free trade agreement countries.
Why, then, is the Trump administration torpedoing an industry that’s achieving the very thing it says it wants to achieve, which is to boost domestic manufacturing and jobs?
And let’s not forget the broader EV supply chain – materials, parts, and component suppliers across the country would also suffer, though these effects haven’t even been fully quantified yet.
Bottom line: Repealing the tax credits and regulations wouldn’t just slow down EV sales – it would threaten the jobs, investments, and communities counting on America’s EV manufacturing boom.
Read more: Republican districts lose billions as clean energy cancellations surge
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The Optiq, Cadillac’s most affordable EV, just got a price cut. Despite being on the market for less than two months, GM cut lease prices by nearly $100 a month. Here’s how you can snag the deal.
GM cuts lease prices on Cadillac’s most affordable EV
Compared to Cadillac’s other electric vehicles, like the Escalade IQL, which starts at over $130,000, and the Vistiq, which has a price tag of over $77,000, the Optiq already looks like a steal at about $55,000.
Cadillac’s electric SUV arrived in January with lease prices starting at $489 per month. Although this was already its cheapest SUV (gas or EV), GM is making it even more affordable this month.
The 2025 Cadillac Lyriq is now listed at just $399 for 24 months with $4,929 due at signing. In less than two months, the OPTIQ’s lease prices have fallen by $90, or almost 20%. The deal is for the 2025 Cadillac Optiq AWD Luxury 1 with an MSRP of $54,390.
Cadillac’s lease deal runs through March 31. However, there are a few limitations you should know about. The deal includes a $2,000 loyalty or conquest offer.
The fine print states you must be a lessee of a 2020 model year or newer non-GM vehicle for at least 30 days. According to online car research firm CarsDirect, this extends to 2011 and newer electric vehicles from a competitor brands such as Tesla, Rivian, Porsche, BMW, Ford, and Honda, among several others.
At 190″ long, 75″ wide, and 65″ tall, the Cadillac Optiq is about the same size as the Tesla Model Y (187″ long x 76″ wide x 64″ tall).
Powered by an 85 kWh battery pack, the electric SUV has a driving range of up to 302 miles. With 150 kW DC fast charging, the Optiq can gain up to 79 miles of range in about 10 minutes.
| 2025 Cadillac Optiq trim | Starting Price (including destination) |
Driving Range (EPA-estimated) |
| Luxury 1 | $54,390 | 302 miles |
| Luxury 2 | $56,590 | 302 miles |
| Sport 1 | $54,990 | 302 miles |
| Sport 2 | $57,090 | 302 miles |
Inside, the Optiq features a massive 33″ infotainment and “segment-leading” cargo (57 cubic feet) and second-row space.
GM has been introducing new deals on new EV models all year. Chevy’s new Equinox, Blazer, and Silverado EVs are all available with 0% APR with leases starting as low as $299 per month.
Ready to take advantage of the savings? We can help you get started. Check out our links below to find deals on GM’s most popular EVs in your area.
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